


And the Angels Sing

by Jaydeun



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Humor, Idiots in Love, Karaoke, Light Angst, M/M, Pining, Queen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-07-10
Packaged: 2020-06-26 01:23:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19757719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaydeun/pseuds/Jaydeun
Summary: “Aziraphale, that is not a Japanese restaurant.”“But of course it is!” the angel insisted, then read out loud in highly exaggerated pronunciation: “Kar-a-O-kē. See?” Crowley drummed the steering wheel.“You don’t know what that means, angel.”Short story in which Aziraphale tries to pretend he has not made a terrible mistake, and Crowley has a wickedly marvelous time.





	And the Angels Sing

It didn’t seem at all right, but the angel had been very specific about the address. Wrong part of town, surely? He had to admit that the incongruity of human development projects could confound hell itself. But the sign. There was no denying the sign.

“Aziraphale, that is not a Japanese restaurant.”

“But of course it is!” the angel insisted, then read out loud in highly exaggerated pronunciation: “Kar-a-O-kē. See?”

“You don’t know what that means, angel.”

“My dear boy,” Aziraphale tutted, “I don’t need your wickedmedia—”

“Wikipedia,” Crowley corrected.

“Online Purveyors of information,” the angel said a trifle testily, “to find the meaning of words. You may be astonished to discover they make books for that. It is a shortened form of karappo—that means empty, you know—and okestura, for orchestra.”

“And that means?”

“Empty orchestra!” Aziraphale said triumphantly. Crowley felt his eyebrows twitch.

“Which means…” he asked, dragging the last word out in hopes that a light would go on somewhere. It didn’t.

“I hope it means excellent sushi!” Aziraphale beamed. “AND I’ll have you know I looked it up! On the, ah, on the page. It has four stars.”

Crowley had to admit surprise. Not about the stars; everyone lied about those. That was the point of inventing them.

“You? Were on the internet?” He wasn’t sure how; Aziraphale still had a rotary phone. The angel puckered his mouth into an inverted triangle of annoyance.

“I can use technology as well as anyone,” he said, which wasn’t remotely true; he could use technology just slightly better than Newt Pulsifer. But Aziraphale was getting out of the Bentley anyway. “Are you coming?”

* * *

***

Anthony J. Crowley did not, strictly speaking, invent karaoke. He had briefly considered taking credit for it. The practice had the wonderful advantage of combining alcohol abuse with public embarrassment. But it came with disappointing side effects of human enjoyment. Crowley opted at last to leave it be, just one more peculiar human invention that somehow combined best and worst. The question about whether or not Crowley himself enjoyed karaoke, however, was harder to answer. Did he, for instance, have any basis for comparing one den of disharmony to another? Was he a connoisseur able to judge quality of such establishments, from the cowboy-themed honky-tonk Thursday night of American origin—to the rented private rooms of subterranean Tokyo lounges—to the anomaly of a small pub in York, just near the Minster, with its remarkable acoustics, excellent selection of single malt, and a bar tender who pronounced Crowley’s name right on the first try? Who can say? Regardless, Crowley knew at first glance that this karaoke bar was not a good karaoke bar. But if Aziraphale would not listen to sense, he saw no reason to keep him from a humbling dose of reality.

“They don’t appear to have, erm, tables—” the angel said. He appeared to be having a good look ‘round, too, his eyebrows creeping up his forehead. Of course, it was just the sort of place Crowley expected: dark, a bit grimy, cracked vinyl booths and a bar mirror that hadn’t been cleaned since smoking in doors went out of fashion. The kind that might appear on an enormously popular Tumblr of devastating karaoke bar reviews that he may or may not have something to do with. Even so, Aziraphale managed a forced smile. “There is room at the bar, however.”

“Is there, now?” Crowley pushed ahead and sat upon the nearest stool. AH. The angel no doubt assumed a sushi bar. He gave Aziraphale a toothy smile and knocked on the bar top. “Menu!”

“Oh. Oh, yes.” The angel joined him, but not before inspecting the stool carefully first. His fault for wearing cream colored trousers all the time. The bartender handed over a sticky laminated card with exactly six options for food, two wines (“red” and “white”) and the tap beer list.

“Not what you were looking for, eh?” Crowley asked, leaning his chin on his hand—and his elbow on the bar as far as possible without actually lying on it. The look on Aziraphale’s face hadn’t changed, however; it hovered somewhere between stubborn insistence and abject panic. And rather to Crowley’s surprise, stubborn insistence was winning out.

“Not sushi. But. Well. There are—chips.”

“And Scotch eggs,” Crowley added with evidence glee. Pride goeth before the fall, eh? Well. He was going to enjoy this as much as possible. “Do you know what they call chips in America?”

“Yes. Yes, I do—and really, my dear, that one’s almost unforgivable.” 

“You don’t say.” Crowley had been almost uniquely responsible for ensuring French cuisine never got a foothold in the United States. Out of spite. For both places. He was rather proud of that. The bar keep had drifted back again, and Crowley gestured at him languidly. “Two whiskeys. Neat.” No need to say what kind. It wasn’t that sort of place.

“Right,” Aziraphale coughed. “And—chips. And, erm, Scotch eggs?” The bartender nodded and wandered away. Crowley’s pupils flickered like candles inside their orbs; fucksake, he ordered food. The night just kept getting better, and the angel hadn’t even noticed the stage yet. Crowley swung round to face the back of the bar where the “DJ,” as it were, had just put up a portable screen. The sort that may have begun life as partner to a slide projector.

“Cheers,” Crowley said, clinking Aziraphale’s glass. The angel drank. Probably to be polite at this point. But when Crowley drained his in a gulp, he endeavored to catch up.

“I say, that’s a microphone,” Aziraphale said, brightening for the first time since they arrived. “You see? They have entertainment. It isn’t so very bad, is it?”

“I didn’t say it was,” Crowley admitted honestly. But it gave a very clear view to what Aziraphale had been thinking. 

“No, no. Of course.” He finished the whiskey. Crowley ordered two more. He may as well; they had an hour or more before things got going, and he was prepared to perform demonic miracles all night just to keep the gloriously awful food from arriving too early. They wouldn’t want to miss the fun, would they?

* * *

***

Aziraphale had, indeed, used the “internet.” It took some doing to make it work on the ’97 Macintosh. Mostly because he had to miracle its Bluetooth connection, and that took longer than dial-up and sounded almost as awful. Also he had to, erm, borrow his access from #SLICK7597, whoever that was, as it was mercifully unsecured. But knowing how to get there and knowing what to look for had been an entirely different matter. He’d repeatedly asked a bookshop patron about restaurant guides, but the man just made the strangest noise each time—yelp. On the bright side, Aziraphale simultaneously discovered a new way of getting customers to leave in a hurry. Aziraphale opted at last for searching a map of establishments instead. Of course he knew UMU in Mayfair (two Michelin stars), but they’d been to that one, and what was the point of saving the world from Armageddon if you weren’t going to try something new? He’d turned down Kyoto Kitcho for the same reason, as well as the little shop round Soho. In the end, he’d give up and simply looked for Japanese words. Karaoke sounded lovely and exotic. And its association with orchestra suggested a rather exciting novelty. Now, where he presently found himself certainly offered novelty. But it was clearly not a sushi restaurant. Crowley had intimated as much when they stepped out of the Bentley, but Aziraphale had still not quite brought himself to admit the mistake. Pride goeth before the fall, he thought with a sigh. So he’d spent two hours sitting upright and proper on the impossible bar stool, with Crowley sliding round the bar in an absolute ecstasy of enjoying himself. AND the wait staff brought the wrong order—twice. The first was a steaming hot pile of something; sauerkraut, he thought, and a deeply unfamiliar looking meat. The second time it was ‘bangers and mash’ which Crowley found indecently humorous. Aziraphale drank the rest of his third whiskey. At least, he believed it was his third. He didn’t even like whiskey.

“Crowley,” he said in what he meant to be a very chastising tone. It would have worked much better had been able to look the demon in the eye. And he couldn’t. Not because of the sunglasses Crowley wore, but rather because everything had gone rather fuzzy round the edges. Maybe there had been four whiskeys after all? “Ahem. Crowley, I say.”

“Mmm?” The demon twisted back to face him in a way that people with spines really should not do.

“I have something of a—”

“Confession?”

“Admission. Oh, well yes, fine. Confession.” Aziraphale crinkled his forehead. “I am not very good at the internet.”

“Ah.”

“I have no idea what sort of establishment this is.”

“And?”

“And. I should have said so.” The angel practically glowed blue from manifested relief at having told the truth. It wasn’t that he couldn’t lie; he just didn’t enjoy it. And he wasn’t very good at it, either. “Are you going to tell me what karaoke is, now?”

“Nah,” Crowley peered at him over the lenses, just a hint of yellow gold. It promised mischief. “I’ll show you.”

He was up in a flash, wending his way through the now increasingly crowded bar with his characteristic swagger. Aziraphale followed him, not just with the usual corporeal eyes (the ones that borrowed the help of reading glasses now and again) but his real eyes—the ones that crossed over atoms at magnitude and could better see what Crowley was up to. The man behind the speakers appeared to be looking at a computer screen and he nodded to whatever Crowley told him, then the screen flashed above his head. “Next we have a, Mr. CROW-LEE,” the man said into the mic. And then he handed it to the demon, who swung it from the cord as thought he’d done this countless times. Probably, Aziraphale reasoned, because he had.

* * *

***

It might be imagined that the demon Crowley would choose to sing one of Queen’s greatest hits. He had sung them, at least, in his Bentley. Loudly. And once, while on fire. But one did not simply sing a Queen song at a karaoke bar. For one thing, there would be far more inebriation than appreciation. For another, heaven’s culture and arts department peaked creating a voice like that—and that hell would condescend to agree. In other words, with Freddy Mercury’s vocals, you did not fuck. But there were plenty others to choose from. He quite liked David Bowie’s Fame. And the artist formerly (formerly) known as Prince. Tonight, however, Aziraphale was getting a lesson. So: Rolling Stones it would be. You know the one.

In the end, Crowley did two in a row, because waiting for your turn was, like table reservations, something that happened to other people. He knew he’d taken a risk sliding across that floor, but he would demonically sort out his jeans later. A great deal of high-fiving followed. Crowley was not sure what that was in aid of, but it happened at every karaoke bar he’d ever been to. High fives and occasional whispered comments about how a person’s hips should not work like that.

Aziraphale perched on his stool, proper as a folded napkin. Crowley had removed his jacket at some point, and now had it slung over one shoulder. The saunter didn’t quite make it back to the bar before the angel started clapping enthusiastically. Which wasn’t entirely the response he’d expected.

“That was marvelous, my dear boy!” Aziraphale’s radiant face lit up like a candle. “I didn’t know you wrote songs!”

Crowley blinked behind his glasses.

“Erm?” The realization that Aziraphale’s limited knowledge of popular music led him to assume Crowley (and everyone else, no doubt) wrote the songs they sang struck him almost like a brick. In the stomach. And he wasn’t sure why. “They—eh—you remember David Bowie?”

“Tall fellow.” Aziraphale pushed his hands together like a prayer that didn’t quite meet in the middle: “Very thin.”

“R-right. I didn’t write the songs. No one here writes them. You just sing them.” Crowley was pointedly not looking at the angel. He waited for the verbal register of disappointment instead.

“Oh. OH. So the words—up there?” Aziraphale pointed. “That’s for you, then?”

As if Crowley needed to see the words. But broadly speaking—

“Yes.”

“You could sing anything!” Aziraphale clapped his hands again. “I could sing something!”

Crowley suddenly wondered if the fourth whiskey had been a bridge too far in the space of two hours—especially since he may have refilled them at least once demonically as well.

“No. Well, yes. But no.”

“Oh, but I could do!”

“You don’t know any songs, angel. They aren’t packing opera arias—and didn’t you want dinner?” Crowley asked, pointedly not sitting down again.

“I think you assured we didn’t get any proper food,” Aziraphale pretended to be cross, but was practically bubbling over with an idea that Crowley hoped he was wrong about.

“You didn’t want this type of dinner, trust me. What’s that place in Soho?”

“No, no. We agreed to new experiences. Or I did. Anyway, I know plenty of songs. You have played them without stopping for the past twenty-odd years, you know.” Aziraphale straightened his lapels, which were already straight, and marched down into the crowd, excusing himself audibly the whole way. And Crowley let him.

He didn’t mean to let him. “Angel—erm, Azira—” Crowley had risen, and then stopped cold. HolyfuckingwhatdoyoumeanthesongsIplay? Because the only songs Aziraphale was likely to have heard with enough regularity to recognize were… Crowley yanked off his glasses and zeroed in on the angel, who was mouthing the word Queen? to the DJ.

“No. No-no. No.” Crowley stood up and looked about a little frantically. He’d meant to tweak Aziraphale for pretending, tease him a bit for being technologically illiterate, show off just ever so slightly—and probably pay for dinner and a good bottle of claret. He had not meant to subject the angel to complete humiliation, or himself to the unbearable contact embarrassment of what must be the most unfuckingappropriate pairing in 6000 years: Aziraphale imitating Freddy Mercury. He thought about cutting the lights. Except the angel would just turn them back on again. He was funny when he got things in his head. You could almost imagine him all flaming swords and avenging righteousness when he got a mood on. 

“Next we have Mr. AZIZ FELL,” called the DJ, who may also be many whiskeys in at this point. Crowley gave it up for a bad job and slumped onto the stool again, glasses back on but askew, and face forward into his arms on the bar. At least he didn’t have to watch this. The music started; Crowley forbade himself to even register the tune—and he was doing such a good job that, at first, he hadn’t noticed the bartender freezing in mid-pour, or the way the noise level had suddenly ebbed. A moment later, and he knew why. It had begun so quietly, so gently. But it was louder, now, swelling—the kind of thing you heard at the edge of sleep and thought you’d imagined it. Crowley had heard it before. But not for a long, long time. He raised his head and turned around with deliberation. 

Aziraphale stood perfectly still and pin straight. He looked a foot taller, somehow, with his head held back that way. Cool light pooled against his throat, and with each measured exhale the demon heard the sound. It rang, dulcet, triumphant, beautiful. Sweet, lasting, celestial. Crowley clutched the rim of the bar as though it were a cliff face. It wasn’t painful; it was exquisitely painful, and he felt it all again, the sudden pang of vertigo at the edge of the Great Divide. Crowley felt the air retch from his lungs, but he kept his eyes on Aziraphale. His real eyes, lenses off, public opinion be damned. It was the sound of heaven.

The angel sang. And in the hazy back-room light, a perceptive soul might have seen the slow expansion of gleaming white wings. Not in this plane. Not quite in the next one. Lost in the words, and the sound, the practice of singing, all the heaven and host, all bowed before the throne itself. Holy, holy, holy, he sang—just not in words. Crowley shuddered slightly. Then he trembled. It wasn’t fear. It was—it was—

The music faded away, but you might have heard the drop of a feather. No one moved. Not even the angel, who had shrunk back to himself, and who was waiting, oddly expectant—and as though perhaps he’d done something wrong. Then came the sound of two hands clapping, slow and sincere, and it took Crowley a minute to realize they were his. That seemed to unlock the rest of them, and delayed shouts echoed round with the usual frivolity of such places. Humans were funny creatures that way. Awe faded almost as quickly as terror, a resilient kind of forgetting that meant most would refer to the night’s event merely as “having heard a fellow with a good set of pipes.” 

Crowley, however, would remember. He’d have to; he felt it still in his very sinews, liquid enough at the best of times and presently having some trouble getting him to the car. Aziraphale had asked politely how he’d fared, and if the “high five” was a compliment. Crowley managed answers, but the ride home transpired in silence. Mainly because he’d made certain to shut off the stereo well before starting the engine. When they arrived outside Aziraphale’s bookshop, the angel cleared his throat ever so slightly.

“You were right, you know,” he said opening the door.

“About?” Crowley asked, climbing out himself and leaning against the Bentley’s gleaming top. Blue eyes, slightly too wide, but an expression harder to read.

“That was not a Japanese restaurant.”

Crowley was supposed to make a sharp quip; he knew his role. Say something keen and clever and set things to rights. He just didn’t have it in him. He managed a half smile instead, and knew even that came out wrong.

“Oh, Crowley, I am sorry,” Aziraphale was saying. “I got carried away, you know; it has been some time. And it’s so easy to, eh, to get lost in it.” Well, thought Crowley, right-o there.

“S’right.”

“They enjoyed yours much better. I’m sure they did. And I shouldn’t have really.” Aziraphale shut the door carefully. Gently even. “Almost didn’t catch the wings, there, at the end.”

“Noticed,” Crowley added. That wasn’t at all what he’d meant to say. He wasn’t sure what he meant to say. But something better than noticed. Aziraphale wrinkled his nose, cherub cheeks squeezing between eyes and smile. 

“Well, I won’t be doing that again. I promise.”

And then he was walking away. Just like that, across the street, and he’d be in the door. Crowley gulped air he didn’t need, except he needed it very much right that minute.

“Never, angel?” he asked. Except the first word came out like want, and the last one like need. They rang with something like longing, too. And distance. Aziraphale stopped short, turned, and shook his head as if he were telling a small boy how silly he’d been.

“In public, my dear. Not again in public.”

Crowley didn’t say goodnight. He didn’t say anything, just watched the best thing he’d ever had anything to do with wander into a dark bookshop. It took him almost ten minutes to get himself back in the car, and another ten to get himself down the street. Such that he was more than half way home before he realized—or rather, remembered—what song Aziraphale had actually chosen to sing. And he nearly put the Bentley on a curb for his trouble.

It had been Love of my Life. 


End file.
